Saturday, February 05, 2005

Netflix is FAST

I thought I may as well confess that I have joined the throngs of people who signed up for Netflix. Particularly during the winter, with my wife working on projects that often eat up a lot of her evening on the computer, I do find myself with some extra time on my hands. I don't get out to the movies much any more, and I miss a lot of films that I would certainly have considered seeing otherwise. Plus, Georg and I rarely agree on a movie to watch, since we go in for very different genres. (She really like animated films, children's movies and historical period pieces, while I go in more for porn and smut action, science fiction, mob films and comedies.

At any rate, I signed up on Thursday on the recommendation of Mike and some people in my office, picked out a number of initial films to put in my queue, and received e-mails the next day (yesterday) that they had shipped. They all showed up today. Pretty amazing.

If you're not familiar with this service, you can select from something like 30,000 titles ranging from new releases to early silent classics. They mail you the movies in such a fashion that you always have 3 movies on hand at any given time. When you finish watching the film, you put it in the postage paid return envelope provided, mail it back, and as soon as they get it they ship you the next movie in your queue. There are no late fees because you can keep them for as long or short of a time as you like... you just don't get a new one until you send one back. This service costs about 17 dollars a month and there's no limit on how many you can rent each month. If you watch more than five movies in a month, you have doubtless saved money over most rental places.

I'll let you know how it works out for me. Now I need to get busy picking a bunch more out and stacking them up in the queue. I better check out Jill's links for movie suggestions at Brilliant at Breakfast.

"War is, and must always remain, the course of last resort. It represents the complete and utter failure of diplomacy and all other forms of civilized conflict resolution. A pre-emptive war must be the very last choice, only to be entered into after long, sober consideration. It must be embarked upon only with a broad base of consent among our global neighbors after we jointly reach the sad conclusion that there is simply no other choice, and that we face a clear and present danger to the rest of the world."